Women in Wine group launches in NZ

Women in Wine Central Otago is a new group dedicated to raising the profile of women winemakers and grape growers in the New Zealand region, as well aiming to inspire more women to join the industry.

Women in Wine has been founded by Janiene Bayliss and takes its cue from similar groups around the world especially in California.

Bayliss commented that there are a large number of women in the southern New Zealand region (which is also the southernmost wine region in the world) involved in winemaking and grape growing and the new group was meant to not only highlight their work but also help improve it further and encourage more women to take up viticulture.

She said: “The region while beautiful is remote and covers a distance of 120km from Wanaka to Alexandra there is certainly not a lot of life in-between. It would be the equivalent of driving from London to Windsor to get a bottle of milk and loaf of bread and no one between the two towns.

“With that remoteness comes all the challenges life can bring, isolation, lack of access to local knowledge and opportunities to share practices and principles in the wine industry. Being in very large rural communities there are the normal challenges of poor services and reduced services. What are now considered the basics of life for most people around the world, mobile phone coverage, high speed broadband and even adequate radio coverage all elude great parts of this wine community.

“We believe we can do something about this and develop our community and industry a lot further and faster. We also have a goal to get more women into the wine industry as their first career.”

The group will launch officially tomorrow (31 January) with a lunch in Bannockburn, Central Otago.